142
NOTES AND QUERIES. f n s. v. FEB. 24 , 1912.
inimitable B. Another touch of a blunt
razor on B.'s nervous system." He was
hardly able to work, and " dreamed of
Timeses all night. Disposed to go to New
Zealand and start a magazine." However,
he soon pulled himself together, set hard to
work, and " hoped he had been very suc-
cessful."
In February he returned to London, and busied himself with a theatrical benefit for Leigh Hunt ; but the purpose had hardly been announced when Lord John Russell granted Hunt 2001. a year from the Civil List, so it was determined to reserve a portion of the amount received for the benefit of John Poole, the author of ' Paul Pry.' On the last day of 1847 he was in Edinburgh, and saw for the first time the Scott Monu- ment, which he considered a failure, likening it in his displeasure to " the spire of a Gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground." Previously, at Glasgow, the Lord Provost had entertained him at "a gorgeous state lunch," and at night there had been a great dinner- party
" Unbounded hospitality and enthoozymoozy the order of the day, and I have never been more heartily received anywhere, or enjoyed myself more completely."
In the following year, 1848, a committee was formed for the purchase and preserva- tion of Shakespeare's house, and Dickens, as is well known, threw himself heart and soul into that enterprise.
Having no important writing on hand, Dickens, in the summer of 1848, went some- what earlier than usual for his holiday, and tried Broadstairs. He spent part of his time, at Forster's request, in writing a little essay on a series of twelve drawings on stone by Leech, called ' The Rising Generation,' from designs done for ' Mr. Punch's Art Gallery.' Dickens as an art critic will probably be a novelty to many, and all lovers of Leech may well be interested in what he says of him, for the name of Leech is still, and will be for long years to come, a household word. In the -essay he refers to the works of Rowlandson and Gillray, and says :
" In spite of the great humour displayed in many of them, they are rendered wearisome and unpleasant by a vast amount of personal ugliness."
And Dickens maintains that
"Mr. Leech was the very first Englishman who had made Beauty a part of his art, and that by striking out this course, and setting the successful example of introducing always into his most whimsical pieces some beautiful faces or agreeable forms, he had done more than any other man of his generation to refine a branch of
art to which the facilities of steam-printing and
wood engraving were giving almost unrivalled
diffusion and popularity."
And then, after referring to an article in The Quarterly Review which had commented on the absurdity of excluding a man like George Cruikshank from the Royal Academy, because his works were not pro- duced in certain materials and did not occupy a certain space: "Will no Associates," asks Dickens,
" be found upon its books, one of those days, the labours of whose oil and brushes will have sunk into the profoundest obscurity, when many pencil-marks of Mr. Cruikshank and of Mr. Leech will be still fresh in half the houses in the land ? "
Apart from this essay*, his only work was to finish ' The Haunted Man ' for Christmas ; so, although the holiday incidents were many, he enjoyed a time of real summer idleness.
In the February of 1849 we find him at Brighton, and in the beginning of July he had settled on the name for his new book ' David Copperfield.' Did he choose the initials D. C. his own reversed inten- tionally 1 He paid a visit to Broadstairs in order to complete the fourth number, and got along with it " like a house afire in point of health, and ditto, ditto in point of number."
From Broadstairs Dickens, in July, went to Bonchurch, where he had taken a house. This visit is of interest because he was attracted thither by its being the residence of his friend the Rev. James White, with whom he spent many happy hours. White, Forster says, had a kindly, shrewd Scotch face; "cheerfulness and gloom coursed over it so rapidly that none could question the tale they told." He was full of quiet, sly humour and the love of jest, and his com* panionship was delightful. Forster ex- presses a hope that his books ' Landmarks of History ' and ' Eighteen Christian Cen- turies : will find " a lasting place in lite- rature," being written " with a sunny clearness of narration and a glow of pic- turesque interest to my knowledge unequalled in books of such small pretensions." Not- withstanding this hope, White gets but a small place in the ' D.N.B.,' and I am ashamed to say that, although I have the books on my shelves, they are among the few I have never read. Perhaps the
- The essay, Mr. Matz informs me, was written
by Dickens for The Examiner, in which it appeared on the 3rd of December, 1848. It is reprinted in ' Miscellaneous Papers,' collected and edited by B. W. Matz.
